


Good Guy Extraordinaire

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-28
Updated: 2005-11-28
Packaged: 2019-01-19 11:44:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12409701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: “It’s just a role you play: Sirius Black, Auror for the ministry and Gryffindor to boot.”� Sometimes your past is the one thing you can’t leave behind.





	Good Guy Extraordinaire

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

**_Disclaimer: Everything from HP books belongs to JK Rowling_ **

** Good Guy Extraordinaire  **

You sometimes feel like the protagonists in an eternal play. _The world is my stage_ , you continually think, _and the curtain my cage._ This play where good fights evil, light fears the dark, and where blood is more valuable than gold, than the largest diamond in the world. You chuckle to yourself sometimes. Defender of the Light, is what you are called. Defender of Innocence, of the Weak, of Mudbloods and of Muggles. It amuses you sometimes because you know that they sit in their mansions and snicker behind their hands whenever they read about you in the Prophet, whenever Andromeda writes to them about your progress in the world. And you know they are just bidding their time, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

It’s a part you play: Sirius Black, Auror for the ministry and Gryffindor to boot. Sirius Black, best friend to James Potter and Good Guy Extraordinaire. And it seems, seems so real to you. Being this guy who helps old ladies cross the street, who battles death eaters to save innocent people’s lives. It sometimes feels like this is what you were _meant_ to do, meant to be. And you repeat it to yourself at night. You repeat it to yourself so that you remember what it is you have become, so that you don’t forget that you are: Sirius Black, the shame of his family, the embarrassment of his heritage.

You dream at night about a life you knew when you were boy. You dream about a huge castle, with towers that reached up to the sky and ghosts that used to whisper in your ear. You dream of a huge castle with winding staircases and solemn portraits of the men from your bloodline, portraits of all the Black heirs dating back to Godric’s time. You dream of a huge castle with a little brother following you around and three girls you aren’t sure you learned how to live without. It was the castle of your nightmares, of your very dreams.

You wake up sometimes in the middle of the night panting loudly with a tear stained face. You’ll see them, see Regulus stare at you with his stormy gray eyes. Watch him scowl at you with his pretty, pink lips as hatred forms on his girlish face. And he’s grown, so much older than you remember him, so much colder than when you would shout to the world that this is your little brother and that no person could ever make you prouder than he does. And you know that in his small heart of stone he hates you in a way you never could hate him.

And then wisps of golden hair take his place and a pretty, angel-like girl appears. Her eyes are still empty like they were when she would watch you play with Bellatrix in the backyard. Her smile is still the sad smile you remember on her face as she drew those gruesome, dreary portraits she once loved so. And of all of them, you remember hating her the most. You remember sneering at her when you were children in the nursery and mocking her whenever she spoke. You remember ranting to Bellatrix that her younger sister was weak, was hardly Black enough to be proud of. And you remember loving her the most, wanting more than anything to make her smile, to make her laugh, to take her delicacy away. You remember loving her the most, even when she was grown and in Hogwarts, even when she became the slytherin James taught you to despise, you always watched out for her. You always protected your delicate cousin.

Than there was her, Dazzling Bellatrix Black with her flashing black eyes and long, midnight hair. Dazzling Bellatrix Black, who spoke to the Devil in her sleep and concocted potions you’re sure even the Dark Lord wouldn’t touch when she was just a child. Beautiful Bellatrix Black, with her natural seduction, her pure wantonness that no guy was safe from, even you. You close your eyes for a second, remember the short whispers in your ear, the small promises you knew she would never keep, and the aura of innocence she generated to every person in that school. Beautiful Bellatrix Black, who manipulated friends and enemies without a second thought, who loved you unlike anyone else she ever claimed to love.

Andromeda, you know she suffers just like you do. You know she lives in a world of goodness yet hears the whispers of evil, of her past constantly beckoning her to immorality. She is the cousin of yours that yearns to be good and yet knows in her soul that she is anything but. She ran away from your world a long time ago. She gave up magic to further herself from this world that you know still tortures her at night. She fled in the middle of the night like you did, fled to muggle London and met the man she is now married to. Fled and yet couldn’t leave the stain of magic behind, the stench. It’s followed her for years, as it follows you. You are two of a kind, the only Blacks who know of the true torment magic can inflict on its victims.

It’s rather distressing, this role playing you’ve gotten used to, missing the very people who pushed you into this dual existence. You were one of them. Sometimes in the midst of you mind you still are one of them, but the stain of Gryffindor could never wash away. You disgraced them, shamed them as you wore a lion emblem on your chest, but ignored their glares, their building hatred because of the sick satisfaction you got from your parents’ discomfort. It soothed you in a way nothing else could.

But with them, after your sorting, nothing was the same again. You were no longer the heir of their Most Noble House of Black. You were no longer the dark Prince you once envisioned yourself to be. You were only Sirius now. Only a lion in a world of snakes.

But you were Sirius, _Sirius_ , the child that your parents couldn’t help but be proud of. Sirius, the charismatic charmer alive to breathe their ancient beliefs to all purebloods, to strengthen the old bond between wizards. You were Sirius, brilliant, handsome, social, everything they could have asked for. But the sorting hat saw something else in you. It saw a goodness your parents had looked over. It saw a goodness your still on a journey to find because the evil of your soul will haunt you into your grave until you do.

This is something you can never escape from. James showed you a life you once sneered at, a life you never imagined. And since that day in first year when James Potter solicited your friendship nothing became easy. When you were a child nothing your parents believed in seemed evil, felt evil. To you purebloods _were_ the supreme race. Muggles _were_ the antichrist your whole family thought them to be. It never became evil, and even now you’re fighting for that belief. You wonder sometimes, did you truly pick the right side? Was it right for you to turn your back on your family? Because you still don't understand the reason for this world's constant battles, constant bloodshed. It seems so bloody ridiculous to you sometimes.

Right or Wrong. Good or Evil. It’s all become so damn confusing for you. This world isn’t the Black and White world James and your cousins believe it to be. And you’re forever stuck in the middle of them. You're forever stuck in limbo between dark and light because your brain is forever pulling you towards James but your heart wants nothing but them. It’s a torture worse than any cruciatus curse you could receive.

You miss it sometimes. You miss those velvety black cloaks that filled your closet and you miss those golden rings decorating your fingers, the diamonds glittering in light. You miss the elegance of you old life, the finery you once live with. You miss it sometimes. Miss playing duel with Bellatrix in the backyard and miss being pampered by Andromeda. You miss being your parents little darling, the favored child amongst you all.

It was a dark world you grew up in. A world where you can only trust yourself. A world where friends can be your enemies and your enemies be your friends. It was a world where glory and honor mean nothing next to power, where nothing is more important than the blood running through your veins. It was a world that made you shrewd from a young age. A world where the weak never survive and the wise rule over everyone. A world where passion, where feelings ruled without the clean cut version of right and wrong. It’s a world you understand better than any other.

Sometimes, you see her smiling at you through her cold face. You smell her, smell lavender and rosemary, feel her silky hair falling over your body when she hugged you. You hear her singing to you as you slept and listen to her fighting for your very survival. You cry sometimes. Your mother was once a beautiful woman, once loved you above all else. And you loved her, too. Loved that woman who only had your care in mind. You loved that woman broken by a loveless marriage, broken by a hard life it was your destiny to repeat. She changed when you became a Gryffindor. She changed when she realized her eldest son was lost to her. It’s sometimes easier for you to just forget and remember her as the tragic mother before hatred for you filled her cold eyes.

It’s hard to comprehend. All through your Hogwarts years you did nothing but battle with them. Did nothing but prank Regulus as he ate his meals. Did nothing but sneer at Narcissa as she sat drawing by the lake. You did nothing but verbally abuse Bellatrix, fight with her about honor and about respect. It broke your heart sometimes, telling Belltrix she was an _“evil whore,”�_ telling Regulus that he would never suffice as Heir Apparent to the Black fortunes, and then telling Narcissa that she would turn into a broken old hag, just like your mother. Because you love them, can be nothing without them, yet for most of your adolescents you swore on your hatred for them. You swore that you would have nothing to do with their sinister ways. And you struggle daily to survive in this world of goodness that you will never completely understand, never completely agree with. You are Sirius Black, Hater of Muggles and One-time Master of Purebloods. You are nothing more than a pathetic lie.

It isn’t you though, not anymore. It takes all your energy to remember it, to remember what’s your past and what’s your present. You are Good Guy Extraordinaire now. The lead in this play about your life, the protagonist you wish you didn’t have to pretend to be. You will fight them. You will fight those people of your past, those people you love, until the death because it’s written in the script, written in stone. You are forever on opposing sides, forever adversaries in this world you deemed to be backward because you are Sirius Black, Lonely Hero of the Light Side and hated in the one place you belong. Sirius Black, the Pureblood Exile and the Man without a home. And you know, know that you can’t turn back. You know that all you can do is move forward in the causes James taught you to believe in, the causes you will fight for and die for because… because you are Sirius Black, Good Guy Extraordinaire, and you have nothing else to live for.

**End**

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